Asia Pacific

Struggling Indian airline Kingfisher on Wednesday said it was in talks with bankers to reduce high interest rates on its $1.2-billion debt, but denied it was pursuing a fresh loan restructuring, Agence France-Presse reported. Ravi Nedungadi, chief financial officer of the giant drinks group UB group which controls the airline, said in a statement the carrier was attempting to swap high-cost rupee borrowings for lower-cost foreign debt. "The banks are in active consideration of these requests," Nedungadi said.

It’s “too soon” for China to discuss further bond purchases from Europe’s revamped rescue fund, Vice Finance Minister Zhu Guangyao told reporters in Cannes, France, on the eve of a summit of world leaders, Bloomberg reported. While there are proposals to bolster the European Financial Stability Facility, “there are no concrete plans yet so it’s too early to talk about further investments in these tools,” Zhu said today. Zhu said the rescue fund, already part of China’s portfolio, is an “important tool” to address the sovereign debt crisis.

Efforts to curb inflation in China are having some painful side-effects. A squeeze on bank lending has prompted some businesses short of cash to stop paying wages to blue-collar workers, The Economist reported. Even the much-vaunted state sector is feeling the pinch. Work has all but ground to a halt on thousands of kilometres of railway track, and many of the network’s 6m construction workers have been complaining about not being paid for weeks or sometimes months.

The turnaround plan presented Monday for troubled Swedish carmaker Saab Automobile AB is far from complete, said Martin Larsson, the company's executive director of new business development and, according to speculation in Swedish media, the company's next chief executive. The Swedish district court in Vanersborg on Monday gave the company the go-ahead to continue its reorganization under creditor protection, after Chinese companies Pang Da Automobile Trade Co. and Zhejiang Youngman Lotus Automobile Co.

A bid Monday by Nathans Finance's former auditor could put an end to a $66 million claim brought by the failed finance company's receiver, The New Zealand Herald reported. Nathans Finance collapsed in August 2007, owing 7000 investors around $174 million. PricewaterhouseCoopers receiver Colin McCloy has made a bid to recover investor losses from the directors and from the company's auditor, Staples Rodway.

Failed Japanese lender Takefuji said on Monday its debt holders approved a court-led rehabilitation plan, overcoming opposition from a group of overseas creditors who had sought liquidation of the company in hopes of achieving higher repayment rates, Reuters reported. Approval had been expected for the restructuring plan proposed by Takefuji, which filed for bankruptcy in September 2010, although the conflict with foreign creditors had attracted attention in Japan where such disagreements are rare.

The government is working on a package to restructure loans to the tune of Rs 4,000-5 ,000 crore for the textiles sector but has ruled out a debt waiver, The Economic Times reported. Facing a slowdown, the textiles sector has been saddled with loans and has proposed a four-pronged strategy to deal with the burden, textiles secretary Rita Menon said. It wants the interest rate on the debt to be reset, besides seeking conversion of working capital into fresh debt, which will cost Rs 835 crore.

The Japanese government is expected to approve financial assistance to Tokyo Electric Power Co. this week, after the embattled utility sought about ¥1 trillion, or about $13 billion, in public funds Friday to deal with compensation claims from the disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, The Wall Street Journal reported. The government's objective is to keep the company afloat. Without public funds, Tepco would have to report a capital deficit for the July-September quarter, results of which are due by Nov. 14.

China is very likely to contribute to the eurozone’s bail-out fund but the scope of its involvement will depend on European leaders satisfying some key conditions, two senior advisers to the Chinese government have told the Financial Times. Any Chinese support would depend on contributions from other countries and Beijing must be given strong guarantees on the safety of its investment, according to Li Daokui, an academic member of China’s central bank monetary policy committee, and Yu Yongding, a former member of that committee.

Allied Nationwide Finance, the failed finance arm of Allied Farmers, has failed to attract good enough bids for its loan book, receivers say, as they try to claw back funds to repay the government retail deposit guarantee scheme, The New Zealand Herald reported. Offers for its Speirs Securities securitisation vehicle's book also weren't satisfactory, although receivers Andrew Grenfell and Kerryn Downey of McGrathNicol say some potential buyers are doing due diligence, according to their latest report.